1. Field of the Invention
This application relates generally to printing labels and, more specifically, to a method and apparatus for printing substantially-sterile labels for labeling objects in medical applications.
2. Description of Related Art
Sterile environments are common in the medical field for treating patients with minimal risk of infection. To avoid exposing patients in such environments to infectious organisms medical personnel working therein are required to take precautionary measures. All personnel are required to wash thoroughly before entering the environment, and wear items of clothing such as surgical scrubs that have been decontaminated.
Other objects such as medical equipment can also be contaminated with infectious organisms and such organisms into sterile environments. Bedding, medical devices, and virtually all other objects brought into a sterile environment must undergo sterilization procedures to minimize the risk of infection to patients. Labels for identifying medications, personal possessions, tissue samples, or any other object within a sterile environment are among the other objects that also undergo a sterilization procedure.
Traditionally, each label has been sterilized by the manufacturer before being sealed within an individual wrapper before the wrapped labels were distributed to users. Likewise, pens used for hand writing label content on sterile labels have also been sterilized by the manufacturers and sealed in individual wrappers to be distributed to users in the medical field. In use, a wrapped label would be retrieved from a bin of such labels along with a wrapped pen. Both the label and the pen were opened by the user within or near the sterile environment, and the label content applied to the sterile label with the sterile pen. However, this traditional method and system for providing sterile labels in the medical field is prone to errors due to illegible handwriting.